Economist , March 22 (posted Saturday, March 22) Hollywood is in trouble, says the Oscar-week cover story. Studios ought to reap huge profits, but don't because they overpay stars and produce too many expensive films. (The average studio movie costs $60 million to make and market.) The good news for Hollywood, according to the Economist : Foreign movie producers are even less business-savvy. An article on Zaire advises rebel leader Laurent Kabila not to compromise with President Mobutu Sese Seko, because any delay in toppling the government will damage the country even more. (For a backgrounder on Zaire, see Slate's "The Gist.") A package of stories on the British election blames John Major's troubles on his personal weakness, not his policies. Also, a 24-page survey on management consulting finds the industry vigorous, profitable, and a bit too secretive. New Republic , April 7 (posted Friday, March 21) The cover package takes Congress to task, noting that congressional fund raising is as slimy as White House fund raising. Among the outrages cited: Legislators selling bills and lobbyists writing bills. Another article rips Congress for its sluggish implementation of the Congressional Accountability Act, the 1995 law that was supposed to apply labor and civil-rights laws to Hill employees. Also, the "TRB" column offers this campaign-finance scoop: Clinton will soon ask the Federal Election Commission to pass regulations restricting "soft money," accomplishing by executive action what Hill Republicans refuse to do legislatively. And a piece says that, despite the establishment of the $5 billion gold fund, the Swiss aren't at all sorry for their atrocious behavior during World War II. New York Times Magazine , March 23 (posted Thursday, March 20) The cover story compares Nelson Mandela to George Washington. Mandela suppresses his emotions in favor of the common good, and this serene rationalism has allowed South Africa to escape violence and recrimination. "Elders on Ice" observes the twilight careers of New York Rangers Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier: The "greatest player ever" and the "most-driven player ever" are past their prime, but still know how to win. Also, the technology columnist dismisses Internet "push"--in which content is delivered to users rather than fetched by them--as a silly, doomed trend. (For Slate's take, see "Push Me, Pull You.") Harper's , April 1997 (posted Thursday, March 20) An immensely long article condemns the Drug Enforcement Administration's war on poppy growers. Though poppies have legitimate commercial use (poppy-seed bagels, for instance), the feds are paranoid that gardeners will harvest them for opium. The author grows his own opium poppies, and wonders if he's going to be prosecuted. Also, a creepy explanation for the Rwanda genocide: "Judgment Day" asserts that Rwandans are incredibly law-abiding, so when the government ordered them to kill Tutsis, they obeyed without a second thought. The writer visits Rwanda's awful prisons, where 92,000 people await trial. Newsweek and Time , March 24 (posted Tuesday, March 18) Newsweek looks to the heavens. Time looks for heaven. Newsweek 's cover package, "The Great Comet," celebrates Hale-Bopp. A long article speculates about how ancient Egyptians, Chinese, and Sumerians greeted the comet on its last visit in 2213 B.C. (It was undoubtedly an important omen--of what, no one knows.) A related story tells the when-and-where of the comet's flyby. Time 's cover asks, "Does Heaven Exist?" Until this century, Christianity was obsessed with describing heaven, but now "heaven is AWOL." Most Christian clerics have stopped talking about it, because it's too controversial and too hard to reconcile with modern science. Both magazines cover the Biggie Smalls murder and assert that gangsta rap has gone too far. Also in Time : A profile of Zairian rebel leader Kabila predicts that he'll topple Mobutu, but notes that he's only succeeding because Uganda and Rwanda are helping him. Newsweek presents the government's case against Timothy McVeigh, concluding that "it would have to be a very stubborn juror indeed to hold out in the face of the evidence." The New Yorker , March 24 (posted Tuesday, March 18) "Unarmed Warriors" describes the travails of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The traditional rules of war don't apply in places like Rwanda and Bosnia, where the Red Cross can't persuade soldiers to fight humanely. A harrowing trip with Red Cross workers in Afghanistan is described. A long article, pegged to The Godfather 's 25 th anniversary, recounts its filming in intricate detail. Also, a writer proposes a grand unified theory of stardom: Celebrityhood always lasts three years (David Letterman, 1992-95; Ronald Reagan, 1983-86; etc.). U.S. News & World Report and Weekly Standard , March 24 (posted Tuesday, March 18) Race makes the covers. U.S. News ' cover package, hooked to the 50 th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's major-league debut, argues that sports are bad for black America. While only one in 10,000 high-school athletes will ever play professionally, 66 percent of black teen-age boys believe they could be pros, and the resulting overemphasis on sports has diverted blacks from educational achievement. The Standard deplores black and white obsession with "white racism," arguing that it turns blacks into permanent victims. A related article savages the black newsmagazine Emerge for its paranoid, anti-white style. The magazine's popularity among black professionals is an alarming indication of how alienated the black middle class is from mainstream white America. Also in U.S. News , a story asserts that the Polish army is too rigid and too technologically backward to integrate successfully into NATO. Vanity Fair , April 1997 (posted Tuesday, March 18) The annual Hollywood issue is endless (386 pages). An article about Ted Turner and Jane Fonda's marriage asserts that Fonda always dissolves herself in her male partner, whether he's a radical like Tom Hayden or a plutocrat like Turner. A movie critic blames the decline of movie criticism on Pauline Kael's disciples (among those implicated, Slate's David Edelstein). Also, much Hollywood history: articles on the feud between Hollywood gossips Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper, Roman Polanski's statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl, and the shady activities of the now deceased Hollywood fixer/mob lawyer Sidney Korshak. Ten budding starlets adorn the cover. Zillions of celebrity photographs by Annie Liebovitz are inside. --Compiled by David Plotz and the editors of Slate .